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Comment by IbJacked | Hacker News Reader

I thought I saw a study that showed sleep debt not to be as cumulative as in this guide, that the amount needed to catch up topped out at something like 10 or 12 hours. I don't have a link, though, so I guess my post is equally suspect :)

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It is the difference between chronic and acute sleep deprivation. Go 100 hours without sleep, and sure you'll be hallucinating at the end, but you recover after about 16 hours of sleep. On the other hand, get slightly less sleep than you need, and it builds up over time, and requires an equal amount to get back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation#Counteracting...

Inconsistent sleep patterns can also cause circadian rhythm disorders. I struggle with delayed sleep phase syndrome as a result of years of poor sleep hygiene. I use what is called chronotherapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotherapy_(sleep_phase)) every few months or so in order to put my sleep schedule back at a reasonable time.

That's not what it says. It says that the recovery is slower for chronic sleep deprivation, not that it takes 'as much'. Do you contend that it could take an entire decade to dig out of a large sleep debt two extra hours a night?

After chronic partial sleep restriction, the recovery process of cognitive functioning seems to take longer than after acute total SD. Performance in the PVT was not restored after one 10 h recovery night, but approached the baseline level after two 10 h nights in a study with seven consecutive sleep restriction nights with 5 h sleep/night (Dinges et al 1997). Using the same test, three 8 h recovery nights were not enough to restore performance after one week of sleep restriction

Ah, thank you. I was attempting to find a source for something that I vaguely remembered, while rather tired. The irony of delaying on sleep while reading an article about sleep loss was not lost on me.

Most research shows there is a cap in that with a few weeks of good sleep, waking up naturally, your body returns to peak performance.

I haven't seen much research that suggests you can pay off sleep debt in large chunks so putting the debt in hours doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Sleeping 4 hours tonight and then 12 tomorrow night is not equivalent to sleeping 8 tonight and 8 tomorrow

This is similar to what I've read. That the longer you stay up the more it impedes your mental abilities but you don't incur more "debt". That no matter how long you stay up you fully recover your facilities after one good nights sleep.

Do you have any links? It is contrary to everything I have read and my own experiences. When I pull an all nighter then sleep well the next day I am still wrecked.

From anecdotal experience, generally you'll need 2 consecutive nights of recovery sleep to recover from serious deprivation (whether chronic or acute). 1 usually isn't enough.

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